Just
in time for "Child Abuse
Prevention Month," the
Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) publishes its
annual contribution to obfuscating
the causes of child abuse.

Operatives of the child abuse
industry often wax righteous
about the "scandal"
of child abuse. "We cannot
tolerate the abuse of even
one child," says an HHS
press release. But the real
scandal is the armies of officials
who have been allowed to acquire
-- using taxpayers' dollars
-- a vested interest in abused
children.

Devising child abuse programs
makes us all feel good, but
there is no evidence they
make the slightest difference.
In fact, they probably make
the problem worse. Child abuse
is largely a product of the
feminist-dominated family
law and social work industries.
It is a textbook example of
the government creating a
problem for itself to solve.

Child abuse is entirely preventable.
A few decades ago, there was
no child abuse epidemic; it
grew up with the welfare system
and the divorce revolution.
It continues because of entrenched
interests who are employed
pretending to combat it.

A few undisputed facts will
establish this -- facts that
are passed over and even distorted
year after year by HHS and
others whose budgets depend
on abused children.

Almost all child abuse takes
places in single parent homes.
A British study found children
are up to 33 times more likely
to be abused when a live-in
boyfriend or stepfather is
present than in an intact
family. HHS has its own figures
demonstrating that children
in single-parent households
are at much higher risk for
physical violence and sexual
molestation than those living
in two-parent homes. Yet this
basic fact is consistently
omitted from its annual report.

Shorn of euphemism, what this
means is that the principal
impediment to child abuse
is a father. "The presence
of the father … placed the
child at lesser risk for child
sexual abuse," conclude
scholars in the journal Adolescent
and Family Health. "The
protective effect from the
father's presence in most
households was sufficiently
strong to offset the risk
incurred by the few paternal
perpetrators."

In fact, the risk of "paternal
perpetrators" is miniscule.
Contrary to the innuendo of
child abuse "advocates,"
it is not married fathers
but single mothers who are
by far the most likely to
injure and kill their children.
"Contrary to public perception,"
write Patrick Fagan and Dorothy
Hanks of the Heritage Foundation,
"research shows that
the most likely physical abuser
of a young child will be that
child's mother, not a male
in the household." Mothers
accounted for 55% of child
murders, according to a Justice
Department report (1,100 out
of 2,000, with fathers committing
130). Here again, HHS itself
has figures that women aged
20 to 49 are almost twice
as likely as men to be perpetrators
of child maltreatment: "almost
two-thirds were females."
Given that "male"
perpetrators are not usually
fathers but much more likely
to be boyfriends and stepfathers,
fathers emerge as by far the
least likely child abusers.

While men are thought more
likely to commit sexual as
opposed to physical abuse,
sexual abuse is much less
common than severe physical
abuse and much more likely
to be perpetrated by boyfriends
and stepfathers. "Children
are seven times more likely
to be badly beaten by their
parents than they are to be
sexually abused by them,"
according to the National
Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children. The
NSPCC found that father-daughter
incest is "rare, occurring
in less than 4 in 1,000 children,"
and that three-fourths of
incest perpetrators are brothers
and stepbrothers rather than
fathers. HHS's own figures
show that reported sexual
abuse is a tiny minority of
reported child abuse, and
of this little is committed
by real fathers. The Journal
of Ethnology and Sociobiology
reports that a preschooler
not living with both biological
parents is forty times more
likely to be sexually abused.

Yet feminists would have us
believe that father-daughter
incest is rampant, and conservatives
credulously swallow their
propaganda. A recent PBS documentary,
"Breaking the Silence:
Children's Stories,"
asserts without evidence and
contrary to known scientific
data that "Children are
most often in danger from
the father."

Feminist child protection
agents implement this propaganda
as policy. "One scholarly
study concluded that "An
anti-male attitude is often
found in documents, statements,
and in the writings of those
claiming to be experts in
cases of child sexual abuse."
Social service agencies systematically
teach children to hate their
fathers and inculcate in the
children a message that the
father has sexually molested
them. "The professionals
use techniques that teach
children a negative and critical
view of men in general and
fathers in particular,"
the authors write. "The
child is repeatedly reinforced
for fantasizing throwing Daddy
in jail and is trained to
hate and fear him." A
San Diego grand jury investigative
report found that false accusations
during divorce were positively
encouraged by government officials.
"The system appears to
reward a parent who initiates
such a complaint," it
states. "Some of these
involve allegations which
are so incredible that authorities
should have been deeply concerned
for the protection of the
child." Such behavior
by officials is driven by
federal financial incentives.
"The social workers and
therapists played pivotal
roles in condoning this,"
charged the grand jury. "They
were helped by judges and
referees."

Seldom does public policy
stand in such direct defiance
of undisputed truths, to the
point where the cause of the
problem -- separating children
from their fathers -- is presented
as the solution, and the solution
-- allowing children to grow
up with their fathers -- is
depicted as the problem. If
you want to encourage child
abuse, remove the fathers.

That is precisely what officials
do -- not only social workers
but also family court judges.
It is difficult to believe
that judges are not aware
that the most dangerous environment
for children is precisely
the single-parent homes they
themselves create when they
remove fathers in custody
proceedings. Yet they have
no hesitation in removing
them, secure in the knowledge
that they will never be held
accountable for any harm that
comes to the children. On
the contrary, if they do not
they may be punished by the
bar associations, feminist
groups, and social work bureaucracies
whose earnings and funding
depend on a constant supply
of abused children. It is
a commonplace of political
science that bureaucracies
relentlessly expand, often
by creating the problem they
exist to address. Appalling
as it sounds, the conclusion
is inescapable that we have
created a huge army of officials
with a vested interest in
child abuse.

Dr. Baskerville
is a political scientist and
president of the American
Coalition for Fathers and
Children